Genocide
Jan 19th, 2008, in News, Opinion, by RossWhether there was a genocide in 1965 and what happened to the survivors.
Wednesday’s Jakarta Post saw yet another effusion of pinko propaganda from their comely but carping columnist Julia Suryakusuma.
She has long been a source of tiresome lefty whines, which is a pity because she is not without intellect and occasional humour, but this week she has climbed aboard the seemingly imminent Suharto hearse to bang on again about the Reds who got whacked back in 1965.
Suharto’s deathbed, a nightly feature of tv at the moment, has induced me to revisit my books, and I note that claims of the death-toll in the post-Gestapu killing vary from Sukarno’s 87,000 to the London Economist magazine’s 1 million. Everybody else seems to have settled for about 500,000, many of them anti-communists murdered by Reds. But let’s stick to the ones Julia and her sort care about.
Since the PKI Communist Party claimed 3 million members, plus assorted affiliates totalling at least another seven million plus, that would leave a huge number of Reds in pretty good shape to carry on their evil work. The interesting question is :- where did they go, and what are they up to these days, the ones who were young men and women in 1965? (Even if we exclude the peasants and labourers misled by lying propaganda, the PKI’s actual membership should be supplemented by nasty off-shoots like the intellectuals’ LEKRA and the Gerwani harpies. We’re talking of millions of traitors – not all of them retired to write books or gone to meet their presumably displeased Maker).
Some of course fled to lands noted for true people’s democracy, such as Red China (which naturally howled about the terrible “genocide” in Indonesia, oblivious to Mao’s Marxist massacres (by deliberate famine as well as more conventional means) of 30 million, at the very least, innocent Chinese). Others did time, and emerged, a lot of them, still ranting and unrepentant (including one famous writer, who maintained a Pontius Pilate stance on his own collaboration with marxist treason).
But what about the vast majority?
From way back before 1965, it was standard Red practice to infiltrate other parties, and all areas of public life, including the Armed Forces. (Early examples of this include the notorious Syariffudin, who actually headed the national government briefly before being exposed and getting his just deserts before a firing squad, and the infiltration by Reds like Setiadjit and Tan Ling Djie of – respectively- the Labour Party and the Socialists).
So there would be quite a few sleepers already in place, all the better to facilitate lesser-known adherents when they needed a place to doss down for a few years. It defies all reason and logic that they would not do their utmost to burrow into positions of influence wherever they happened to be. That’s what Communists do – it’s their duty.
How many journalists from Harian Rakyat, the PKI rag, somehow got taken on by respectable media? Anyone who thinks Marxists should be allowed to work on honest papers should recall Sukirman, the PKI apparatchik who got his hands on Djakarta Radio. He declared early on that its role under his stewardship would be that of an instrument serving the cause of “Indonesian Socialism”. About as objective as the recent Jakarta post “news” item on the Falkland Islands, an almost straight reprint from the Argentine Embassy hand-out.
How many politicians, indeed, how many in the military, kept their heads down on orders from the Politburo, hanging in there, grooming their successors carefully? Marxist attachment to the “iron law of history” surely leads them to take a long view. Forty years is a drop in the bucket.
This may well explain the constant harping of certain sections of the media and some politicians on the same themes that the inimitable Julia raised in her article, a long tirade in which she shamefully linked the real crimes of Suharto’s regime (those poor students at Semanggi, for example) with the retribution earned by the Communists’ vicious and arrogant lust for power (even Sukarno, a willing collaborator with the PKI’s totalitarians, acknowledged that communists were like
rats which have eaten a part of a big cake and tried to eat the pillar of our house.
The Semanggi students were innocent, for pity’s sakes! Aidit and his comrades wanted to wring democracy’s neck.
What’s the big deal that the PKI was outlawed? Canada banned the Communist Party for some time, as did the Federal Republic of Germany and Greece. Why? Because Parliament in Ottawa recognised that the C.P. would sell out their own country in time of war, if Stalin so ordered. Because the West Germans saw a third of their country enslaved behind barbed wire and machine-gun posts. Because the Greeks had seen at first hand the atrocities of Greek Communists in a bloody attempted seizure of power.
Indonesians are not fools. They were aware of what would befall their fragile freedoms if the Reds took power. It was the people who did most of the killing, not the Army, which actually reined in the onslaught, notably in Bali. Julia has a go at the N.U.’s role, but it was hardly a Muslim monopoly that exacted vengeance for Communist misdeeds. The Balinese are Hindu and in Sulawesi Christians played a part in curbing the menace.
Of course, Julia puts “Communists” in inverted commas, as if to say that the victims were not really Marxist at all. Aidit would turn in his grave, since he and his pals were dedicated lifelong Stalinist hacks. The PKI stabbed Indonesia in the back at Madiun in 1948, rising in armed revolt to set up a local soviet while decent folk were out fighting the Dutch.
But Julia would maybe excuse such treason. She has not written much about the pre-1965 PKI’s constant apologia’s for subversion and dictatorship. She hasn’t published much in the JP on her views on Communist concentration camps, like Belene in Bulgaria, or the ones in Germany which the Soviet Union’s puppets took over from the Nazis and put to much the same use. But of course the PKI weren’t a violent lot, were they?
In 1965 the 100,000 guns that Air Marshal Dhani was busily preparing to bring in from Red China were perhaps on order for hunting wild animals, in Julia’s fevered mind, and the Gerwani vixens and Pemuda Rakyat thugs training under military instruction out by Halim were just enjoying some calisthenics. Sure, Julia, cover up the evil as you please.
After all, as you say, one of your concerns is whether “the left” will achieve a resurgence in Indonesia. So are you calling for a new social democrat party or a Communist revival? If the former, would they be honest labour democrats, like Saragat’s Social Democrats in post-war Italy, or folk like Mandelson in Britain, who have yet to publicly recant the obnoxious creed they adhered to until electability became prominent in their minds? As for a revived PKI, it would be an insult to the millions worldwide who died at the hands of Communism. That is a genocide worth remembering.
90 Comments on “Genocide”
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Achmad Sudarsono says:
Got it. Saw it. That’s intense sh*t. How much of this will come out now ?
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Mind you, though, folks, let’s keep a level head. A cool – very cool – head is needed. Cold, dispassionate investigation of the known facts. Like forensic exhumations of graves. That Chinese-looking woman in the video, I think is spot on.
Will Indonesia rise to this challenge ? I hope so, but I think not. I think most people are more concerned with soyabean prices now.
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Ross says:
Adrian Vickers makes an extremely interesting point.
PKI taking cover under Golkar wings? Only for protection, or for advancement, or for eventual revenge?
The point remains, if 500000 died, a big IF, where did the other 2.5 million PKI card-carriers go, and the SOBSI etc enforcers, and indeed Lekra’s ‘intellectuals’ who helped Pramoedya’s oppression of freedom in the pre-1965 era but didn’t accompany him to Buru Island? Into Golkar, or other parties, or did they just retire to play chess outside warungs in Pasar Minggu?
As Achmad says, let’s investigate all the angles here. -
Ross,
The number of those arrested were large. These people were sent to Buru, as you know.
After that horrific months, the government issued a letter of non-involvement with the PKI for Indonesians. Many SOBSI, PGRI Non-Vak Sentral, BTI members have been through a difficult time. They have to change their identities in order to survive. I’ve ment someone who hasn’t told her wife that he was arrested and sent off to Buru.As for Golkar, during my research in Blitar, one survivor admitted that the Golkar party forced them to vote for Golkar during the election. As Adrian said, it’s possible that they become more Golkar than Golkar in order to look ‘clean’.
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Janma says:
Guys,
I’m reading a book right now that has a lot of the peoples stories from that time and many many facts from the military operations. Its called Menyerberangi sungai air mata, by Antonius Sumarwan, and there is also a book out of a collection of stories collected by eros djarot and the detak team, i forget the name, I’m reading that one next.
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Guys,
I’m reading a book right now that has a lot of the peoples stories from that time and many many facts from the military operations. Its called Menyerberangi sungai air mata, by Antonius Sumarwan, and there is also a book out of a collection of stories collected by eros djarot and the detak team, i forget the name, I’m reading that one next. Have Any of You read that book?
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Hi Ibu Janma,
Where could I get that book ?
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Gramedia I guess… that’s where I got it… I got loads…. about 1965 and 1966…about the coup, about soeharto… etc etc….
the story about what happened in bali is very very interesting… -
Long Live Communist says:
Guys… Please keep in mind that we all have been lied about G30S/PKI… the same should be G30S/Suharto.
Do you guys know that he with CIA helps isn the one that cause this genocide?
Please do some research before post anything here.
Communist is a very good principal. If Indonesia is a communist from 1965 until now, I believe all Indonesian will have more something to eat.
Please take a look China Case, They are rich, developed, politically stable, economically stable.
It is true that Communist always think that religion is poison. But… They never said to have religion is prohibited.
Look at Indonesia condition right now. Muslim and Christian fight over some small case(Which caused riot later on).
Communist always wants the people to get prosper together.
Offcourse when one country already prosper, they can’t have the communist ideology. But it can be shifted a little bit(Look at china case).
The only country in this world who can digest Communist Ideology well is only China.
CIA helps Suharto to strike Sukarno just because CIA does not see that Sukarno is on capitalist side. It is true that Sukarno is more into communist. because Sukarno can predict the feature. By making Indonesia more into communist, the country can be prosper in the future.
Yeah… i know some people said something about the inflation rate during Soekarno period. It is just because you guys does not want to be patient.. does not have faith in Sukarno…
trust me Sukarno can predict future…
Suharto only brought Indonesia to a deep sh*t condition! -
Dragonwall says:
trust me Sukarno can predict future”¦
Sukarno may have the foresight but he can’t predict the future at all. What he did is analyze the situation and the ideology to be adopted in Indonesia but he was short of achieving his dream for the Indonesian people.
Suharto only brought Indonesia to a deep sh*t condition!
This is where you are wrong. Communist is centrally govern where people will get what they had done or were told to and then evenly distributed to the community. Whereas Soeharto had brought the country from the darkest side of Indonesian history from the VOC to Soekarno into the future when they were about to embark into the 21st century when suddenly everythings change because of greed and political power struggle.
Look out your window and see what you saw and make research in history and compare the difference.
The only thing is that during the period of Soeharto the lighter side of him there were too many of the followings:
1. Too many family ties that led to the kins asking for favors and thus the collution.
2. Too many people at his side trying to help him in return for favors.
3. Too many officials putting their hands into money tht doesn’t belongs to them.
4. Too many business people capitalizing on the corrupt situation where money can buy anything.The heavier side of him is that there were too many generals and advisors who were over zealous in apprehending the situation by by asal Bapak senang and that led to too many incidents and cladestine operation that was done and cannot be undone.
The private side of him is that he was too lenient to people close to him and will not take any harsh of people in the cabinet, party, religion and army for fear of retaliations and boycott.
So much money was pumped into the superstructure of the military backbone and that makes people in green turn the other cheek on him including Habibie. Habibie book that says that he was trying to communicate with Soeharto on 20th May 1998 was just an excuse when the opportunity for him came to take the number 1 seat.
He is now a high flyer, low profile protected species in Germany. If he had been a moderate person, he would have been in the seat, but he is not till now. He doesn’t keep his promise. He talks like sh*t. Just because he have some scientific invention does not make him God. If you were to take a closer look at what he has done at IPTn with his family and cornies, you will understand a large part of research money went to their pocket. How is going on the aircraft that he build.
After Soeharto there has never been a leader good enough to lead Indonesia out of difficulties. This is the period where you can say the rich gets richer, the poor gets poorer.
If Indonesia cannot adopt a system to give the whole economy a shock treatment then Indonesia will standstill on time.
What we see as development in the country like new buildings and projects has nothing to do with the economy.The economy must be viewed and observe in the whole.
To bake a cake you need all the ingredients. Lacking some, you may still say it is a cake but it is not a cake if you understand.
So there are the good of Soekarno and there is also the good of Soeharto. Besides them everyone is just No Action Talk Only.
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Stone the crows! Paul Keating in the JP today could be me! I’m getting worried…an old lefty like him, pinpointing the 1965 PKI menace and showing some grasp of reality.
Which is more than can be said for our ‘Long Live Communist’ contributor above. Where on earth does he get the notion that communism has helped China? Free China is infinitely happier, wealthier and of course more free than Beijing’s gulag despotism. Just as West Germany always remained streaks ahead of East Germany, not only in terms of liberty but in terms of economy. And South Vietnam would surely have been more prosperous than the Hanoi regime’s fiefdom, had it not been sold out by the US media.
Yes, I know Vietnam today is bustling, but the people remain yoked to marxist dictatorship. Surely if these terrible places were so lucky, as LLC’s post above suggests, their rulers would not be terrified of free elections. Look at Cuba, where that old ratbag Castro managed elections with a total of 314 candidates for 314 seats..e -
Ross,
C’mon, pal. Paul was never “an old lefty.” Paul, from the thuggish NSW right, once described the left as “eating their own sh*t” (scratched out in a draft speech by Laurie Brereton, I think), and, famously, “Balmain Basket Weavers.”
In office he floated the dollar, liberalized banking laws, and forged the ’83 wages Accord (as well as I, II, IV, etc). Keating took the ALP leaps and bounds into the 20th century. Whitlam and Doc Evatt did their bit as well. Unfortunately, whilst I like Rudd and his Asia passion, I don’t think he has the cojones of the forementioned chaps.
Point is, Soeharto acted out a personal fantasy of Keating’s: massacring the left. More to the point, Keating as a child new hardship and with a Dad as a successful builder saw a way out of it. I think Soeharto and Keating had similar ideas about power. Keating was nothing if not streetsmart and recognized the New Order saved Australia alot of defense dollars.
That’s something nice, but imbecilic people like Oigal don’t understand. They’d be baying for anti-communism more than anyone. Last week I would’ve asked Oigal what he thought about fighting the Vietnam War. In reality, he’s just too much of a mediocre lightweight to bother. Leave him to his Oigalish thoughts on the golf course.
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Oigal says:
“That’s something nice, but imbecilic people like Oigal don’t understand. They’d be baying for anti-communism more than anyone. Last week I would’ve asked Oigal what he thought about fighting the Vietnam War. In reality, he’s just too much of a mediocre lightweight to bother. Leave him to his Oigalish thoughts on the golf course.”
Tsk Tsk Diddums..thanks for sharing..lol
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Oigs,
See earlier postings. Read ’em. Try to understand ’em, like Big Mal Meningga, goin’ for that try. You can do it, Oigsie. Go for gold, Sunshine. Go you good thing, go ! Go ! Go !
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Ross, I was wondering if you can share with me the context of the training carried out in Lubang Buaya which was under Halim supervision?
Hi, a bit late for this answer, but as far as I know it was for the Konfrontasi Malaysia campaign they were training for there.
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As an add on…… Soeharto was very close with the PKI. They wouldn’t let him join them because they doubted his ‘moral fiber’. so they ‘used’ him but he didn’t become one of them. The problem was they underestimated him. He was smarter than they were. But it probably explains why Latief reported to him about the plans to kidnap the generals.
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Thanks Janma, that’s my understanding of the training. Initially, i wondered if Ross had a different idea of what happened in Halim. He made a sarcastic comment about this but didn’t put in the context…
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Sorry, comrades, been busy. The training at Lubang Buaya was conducted under Air Force auspices because Air Marshal Dhani was a PKI accomplice. He even had them lecturing at his staff college, to indoctrinate his officers in marxism.
Hughes’ book clarifies that only Gerwani and Pemuda Rakyat were given arms, and had their own indoctrination tent hard by the military instruction area.
Konfrontasi may have been on their minds, but only as part of the Fifth Force Sukarno was happy to view as a balance to the anti-communist generals. -
As far as I know the ‘angkatan lima’ or the fifth force was not yet approved or in practice at that time.
Maybe if they’d had arms they would have more of a chance of survival…. -
Yes, Janma, it was still being debated, pushed by the PKI and resisted by the Armed Forces, who naturally saw little need for an extra armed force under the effective control of a totalitarian party. But the fact remains, the reds were there, being trained, and had they had a chance to increase the scope and numbers of that training, yes, they would have had more chance of ‘survival,’ and an even better chance of effecting a Communist take-over.
Aidit boasted that his PKI had a hold on the loyalties of 25 or 30 per cent of the soldiery (I’m dashing this off before work, so don’t have time to see the exact figure, but either percentage would be alarming) The Air Force was, as stated in an earlier post, working hand in glove with the PKi and several non-Air Force regiments had been subverted.
Any further development of a fifth force could have tipped the scales enough to turn Indonesia into a Marxist state. Which would have been worse than anything Suharto ever did, and lasted longer- generals’ regimes don’t usually last longer than the generals in question, but the poor folks in Vietnam, Laos, NK and of course Red China remain denied basic human rights today. -
Ziad says:
How come so many of you in 2008 are still affected by the ‘red scare’! I am going to take the case of the communists and hope I will be able to rationally debate the issue. I believe that apology for the 1965-66 massacres is immoral even if one’s believe, in a simplistic manner, that communism is ‘absolute evil’. Communism is dedicated to radical change, it intends to redistribute wealth and give to the poor, so it is in collision with the wealthy and powerful, who have had the upper hand in most cases, and that is simply because they had the money, the army, the religious institutions and most of the press on their side, and they are willing to fight the threat against their dominance with extreme violence. The capitalist system is a system that legitimizes exploitation, disregards the poor and advocates for competition between unequal individuals because not everybody has even access to education, capital and opportunities (opportunities often comes through favoritism). So the communists are departing in their fight from a disadvantaged position, they are facing the daily violence of the capitalist system that causes people to die from lack of food, medicine and shelter as in the cases of all third world countries, but above all they have to face the US and the rich western European states who defends capitalism because this system allows their bourgeoisie to loot the third world through their multinationals, Indonesia is a perfect example of this, thanks to the Berkley Mafia and its alliance with the local profiteers.
Now this is not to say that communism is free of faults. The communist Soviet Union came under the influence of Stalin, who is an extremely brutal person and who is responsible for many crimes against humanity, but he is no more evil than Truman who killed in one strike 250,000 people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now it is fair to say that the Soviet Union played a positive role in many respects especially to third world people, unlike the western powers it lead a supportive policy to third world countries that helped bringing an end to colonialism in most of them, it gave aid to these countries more than what it took from them while the opposite was happening in the case of western powers, it offered free education to lots of third world populations and provided a state model where all can go to schools and hospitals for free, it reached in few years an advanced stage of industrialization and began to compete in advanced technologies. The soviets where not kind to their population in terms of freedoms but they were kind the rest of the world. The US and Europe allowed freedoms knowing they provided their citizens with high standards of living (thanks to years of colonialism and continuing exploitation of the rest of the world) and relied on influential anti communist press which obstructed communism. However communism benefited the West too, the welfare systems and the generous spending on social programs along with the minimum standards on labor laws were all part of the effort to prevent communism.
While we argue that communism was beneficial to the world we are still faced by the argument that communism is necessarily bad and genocidal and communists are evil doers. Two things to note before proceeding, one, the first ‘legitimization’ for mass murder and genocide is to deprive your enemy of his humanism and portray him as an absolute evil that needs to be disposed of, Hitler did that with the Jews the Hutu did it with the Tutsi and that is an established fact in the study of genocide. Second, this argument reflects the effects of Suharto’s propaganda and willingness to accept moral responsibility and thus to act to prevent the reoccurrence of such barbaric acts whether they are committed against or by communists. The people who adopted communism in the third world were in majority idealists and aspirers for change, lots of them were intellects and artists (the communists appeal to this category is striking) and many were simple peasants and laborers who wanted to live in dignity, there was also a number of manipulators who sought they know what is best to be done for the others. This category was not only present within the communists but all parties, dictators and genocidal rulers that dominated the third world were from all walks of life and all ideologies, so to kill all communists rank and files most of whom were devoted humanists (but even if they were not the case is still the same) in fear of communist dictatorship is absurd especially that the one who did that in Indonesia was no more than savage dictator. Communists were in fact the victims in most cases and when they acted violently they had the same reasons as Suharto’s claim, they had to eliminate the danger and in their case it was a more real danger, and here is why. What is known in Russia as the Red terror was nothing more than reprisals against the white terror, the death of Lenin and the elimination of Trotsky changed the face of the Russian revolution, (many believe that unlike Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky who were intellects could have been much more human than Stalin). In Germany Hitler ascended to power by criminalizing the communists, they were the first to visit his concentration camps to the pleasure of many in the west and the passivity against this first crime paved the way for what came later, Mussolini did the same. At the time labor strikes were still a deadly venture in many western countries and communists did use violence occasionally to defend themselves. Know there were in my knowledge two major democratic experiences for communists, the first was in Spain 1936 and the second in Chili 1970 in both cases the socialists won in elections and tried to change in a democratic fashion and in both cases they were confronted by coup d’état and extremely violent repression by the military, in both cases the price was high and foreign powers were not shy to interfere, in Spain the fascists helped their allies and in Chili corporate US helped its agents. Vietnam was yet another example for what happens to a country that dares to ask for independence and opts for communism, four million civilian Vietnamese died at the hands of the Americans. Now imagine a continent like South America that was put at the mercy of military dictators all came to prevent a second Chili or Cuba and caused the death of countless thousands of their citizens in the name of red scare, this includes large countries like Brazil and Argentina. Communists were massacred in Iraq, Salvador, Iran, Sudan “¦ and you can pick any country and probably it will have its own history of anti-communist violence at least unfair political exclusion of commies. The communists did come very close to power in Italy, where the communists remained for long the largest party without ever having the chance to rule and thanks to the Church and US money they were always kept underrepresented. Greece had a civil a war between communists and non communists, Britain generously helped the communists (who were not angels) to get massacred, and even after that when it seemed that Greece is not yet healed from communist danger it was delivered to a brutal dictatorship (watch the film “Z” about Greece). The US helped the worst kinds of authoritarianisms in Central America to fight communists, in Afghanistan they did the same and got Taliban whose rule was by far worst than that of the communist regime (the communist caused resentment because girl were allowed to school, and the agrarian reform too). Speaking about evil communists they were the first political party to courageously oppose racism and apartheid in the US and South Africa and they paid dearly for it in blood.
Now communists did prevail indeed in some countries though through revolution, the cases are not many, In Vietnam the US feared elections would bring a great majority of communists so it denied elections and waged war, it is funny someone mentioned Cambodia as an example of communist brutality since it is the communist army of Vietnam that put an end to Khmer rouge’s rule against the will of both China and the US (yes the US supported the khmer rouge at their most brutal stage). Cambodia was is no way a communist story, the khmer rouge practices can in no way be accommodated to Marxism or any other socialist trend, that was madness and communists simply do not associate with it. Vietnam became a dictatorship like most other third world countries and many blame its conditions on the US war. Cuba was another case, here there was no mass murder, the single party rule in Cuba did not prevent an improvement in political liberties (in comparison with Batista’s cruel rule), although an authoritarian state in many aspects Cuban’s are more free than most of the rest of, despite continuous US embargo and a war on the island, Cubans enjoy superior education in contrast with the US, they have the highest percentage of doctors (very well formed), has a higher life expectancy rate than the US, all enjoy access to healthcare and Cuba sells medicaments to the US, it offers free education to thousand of foreign students (including 500 from the US), has a distinguished flourishing artistic life, a lovely musical production a daring cinema that freely criticize the regime (look at the movie Fresa y chocolate among many other examples) and sends tens of thousands of doctors to help cure people all over Latin America and the world which explains why Castro is a loved dictator (despite all what you hear about Cuba its human rights abuses consists of rare arrests of journalists). Now many communists were the first to criticize the Soviet Union and China for undemocratic practices and the majority of communists today are highly critical towards these practices. Communist parties exist in most countries (all advanced countries have communist movements) they are active and committed to democracy and are represented in parliaments or in governments, just yesterday Cyprus a European democracy elected a communist president, many Latin American nations elected communists to power, Moldavia another European country elected the communists. In fact it never happened that communists took power by force in a country that offered them the chance to participate freely in democratic life; communist revolutions were directed at totalitarian regimes in Russia, China, Cuba and elsewhere. To turn to Indonesia the communist party was the largest party in the country prior to 1965, communists were hoping to come to power in 1970 through the ballots (that was very likely), the Madiun affair is a different story in a different time in a different context, the violence directed against them was in no way proportional to the violence they have employed at rare times, and it is worth mentioning their many positive contributions but that is going to be a long story”¦ what I want to point at is that what happened in Indonesia was what the US wanted to happen, the communists mass murder that caused the death of no less than 800,000 and probably more than a million is questionable because of the US and Britain’s role in it, yet very little is known so far about that, although we know enough to uncover the alliance between the oligarchy, the army and the US.
So the conclusion would be, 1) communists are no more committed to violence than other parties, communists were victims in most of the cases and if we were to account for the total of that we would be talking about 10s of millions of people (it is funny how you get those inflated numbers on Mao’s massacres for example, they would include draught victims, famine victims, war’s victims multiplied by no less than 4 or 5). 2) Communism in democracies becomes an actor willing to abide by the so called democratic rules (a true democracy would give equal access to media, publicity and equal finding to all parties). 3) Stalin and Pol Pot are hated figures by many communists and do not represent communism. 4) The unfair treatment of communists was in many cases the cause of their extreme responses. 5) There were indeed genuinely democratic communist movements against all odds the best known of which are Spain and Chili, but were brutally crushed. 6) Communism has had positive direct and indirect effects; it also made mistakes which should be acknowledged (although one has to make the difference between Stalin and Pol Pot and communism). Finally all of this is true about Indonesia’s case too, so communism should be allowed to express itself in Indonesia, it has to exist and there should be a debate on what really happened in 1965 instead of continuing to bedevil communists many of whom believed wholeheartedly in the cause of equality and justice. -
Etsi says:
Whoa so many things to say, I’ll try anyhow
Dragonball- PKI is a legal party, it is not established by Sukarno, does not have anything to do with him. The PKI is the fourth largest party in the 1955 General Elections and was the first and second largest in the local elections of 1957. (see Herbert Feith, the Indonesian 1955 elections, translation to Indonesian available, Gramedia). In fact, PKI was only dissolved as political party by a decree of the provisional MPR of 1966. Two other parties dissolved earlier in 1960 were an Islamic based Masjumi and a much smaller PSI. So whomever was affiliated with PKI at that time, even the card carrying party members are membership of a legal party at that time. Only in Indonesia that members (or suspect members of a legal political party is hunted down, some murdered, the rest detained for decades without proof and evidence after a legal political party is being legally dissolved. Worth to note here that the same fate did not happen to members of other two dissolved party, Masjumi and PSI.
Ross- I personally think it is an over simplified phobia of the PKI, and communism in general, especially since your article did not specifically include facts that can be verified. Don’t get me wrong it is I think is a good start of an opinion piece. I think it is important to be underline a principle here, that as long as a political party is established and operates using legal means to exist as a political party, regardless of their particular platform, vision or strategies they should be free to participate in peaceful political campaign for their cause (elections, elected reps in the parliament etc) and only when they are proven to have committed violence as means (intimidation of voters, kidnapping, murder–this does rings an eerie bell to an entity *not PKI* isn’t it?) then they should be put to a court, of final jurisdiction to decide whether in the interest of a larger public interests, should that party be dissolved (yes, that is how a democracy decide on dissolution of parties, through a legal court, due process of law, not by a government). Even then, party members should not be prosecuted lest they are proven satisfactorily to be *directly* involved in the crime, in a trial not by public opinion and certainly not because of their affiliation with the party. Daniel S Lev and Herbert Feith said that compared with all of the other political party at the time, including the three largest party PNI, Masjumi, NU the PKI was the leading party in terms of organisational capacity, is a lot more advance in terms of political party development and administration, way ahead of any other party. This in the end led to increasing positions of PKI in the elections. It wasn’t a myth.
The trainings in Halim was verified to be a training for “Ganyang Malaysia” campaign, a national campaign of Sukarno, where volunteers of youth wings of parties and mass organisation participate on the training and ends on Sept 30. (in one of the few trials of this case, Omar Dhani stood by this testimony, so were other personnel in trial. List of names who participate in this training, mysteriously missing from the Armed Forces headquaters as well as other critical documents relating to this, including the all powerful Supersemar, an executive order giving the power to Suharto to ‘restore orders’.) The trainings was involving different forces of the armed forces (including the army) whom large members of the armed forces started to arrive in Jakarta for preparing a march for the Armed Forces of Oct 5. Anyone who was planning the G30S was well aware of this schedule, that both a large concentration of youth training was there during the week until the afternoon of Sept 30 and that large numbers of armed forces member will be in Jakarta by Oct 5, therefore should there be any ‘eventual’ needs of massive number of armed personnel in Jakarta, there was no other better time for that, which we saw in the days following that is that was exactly what happened, a massive showdown to hunt down PKI and its members.
Some research accounts for documenting evidence of the mass killings, undeniable evidence of that mass killings happened is none the less an official body count by the Indonesian armed forces (the G30S White Paper). The exact number of the murder remain controversial to this day, as many of these are only estimated figure (even the armed forces official numbers did not have details of name and address of the victim, who did the execution where etc).There were a number of anonimous military ‘reports’ of assessment of the killing which were founded and stored at the Cornell University in Ithaca NY. The documentation of this mass murder is as weak as the ground on which these people were executed for, hearsays under pressure of torture tactics that were employed during that time, (village leaders were forced to pinpoint houses of people who were suspected to affiliate with the PKI, or was known to be politically active, the suspect identified are forced to give details of full list of members of PKI or as they say back then ‘symphatisers’ of PKI). Political detainees were transported from prison to prison late at night without any paper trace, and of course without trial, many were transported with this mean never arriving in the next destination. What happened to them?, when the victim’s family inquiring about their death certificate (although asking the authorities about this at that time is as good as a death wish of their own), none was given. Many was murdered, the numbers perhaps a lot less than 1 million, but even if it was just one, that person who were someone’s father, son, husband and more importantly they were murdered for a crime they did not commit. You can call them “reds” as you wish, but a murder is a murder whatever you want to call it.
For people surviving Buru and elsewhere, the information can be read on Greg Fealy, the release of Indonesian political prisoners 1975-1977. And as well as Pramoedya’s memoir, Nyanyi sunyi seorang bisu (translated to the Mute Soliluoqui in English) as well as the oral history of some ex-political prisoners such as those compiled by Ariel sasongko, Menembus Tirai Asap and the memoir of Sulami.
Ahmad- there’s a number of good books on this subject, many of which I have read has been mentioned in earlier posts. Others that might help you are a few I can mentioned here :
– Robert Cribb, the Indonesian 1966-67: studies from Java and Bali and the new book which I haven’t found, How many deaths? problem in the statistics of mass massacre in Indonesia 66-67 and East Timor, published in Germany
– John Hughes, Indonesian Upheaval
– Amnesty International Report, Indonesia in 1977
– Brian May, the Indonesian tragedy, published in 1978
– Rex Mortimer, Indonesian communism under Sukarno
– Hermawan Sulistyo, Palu Arit di Ladang Tebu, Gramedia
– Daniel S Lev, the transitions to guided democracy
– Katherine McGregor, History in Uniform: military ideology and the construction of Indonesia’s past
– Herbert Feith, the decline of Indonesian constitutional democracyMost of these books are very difficult to get in Jakarta because of the strict censorship of the new order government for 3 decades. Except Rex Mortimer’s and Herbert Feith which were recently republished by Equinox, as well as Ruth McVey’s Indonesia’s Communist Party. These and Katherine McGregor’s I got from a Kinokuniya. I forgot where I got John Hughes’ but from memory it is available in Jakarta. Brian May and Daniel S Lev’s I got in a recent used books hunting in Australia. Have a few more, but can’t remember their titles on top my head at the moment, have to check my book piles, but there are few other Robert Cribb ones on the subject as well as out of prints George McT Kahin and Benedict Anderson’s books.
Janma- the gerwani was not only concern about sewing etc, although there’s nothing wrong at all for me for those inspired by Kartini, but Gerwani was a lot more than that, they were working for the cause of womens issue not unlike modern time womens organisations, they were politically active and they were among the first women members of the parliament (elected in 1955 elections) they represent Indonesia in the International Womens Conference in Beijing. A good read on this would be Saskia Wieringa’s book the politicization of gender relations in Indonesia: the Indonesian women movement from Gerwani until new order state.
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Aksi,
Dragonball- PKI is a legal party, it is not established by Sukarno, does not have anything to do with him
I think you miss the point, or perhaps some may have miss the real interpretation. Of all that much was written (exc wikipedia)
There are people who agrees and some disagrees to the communist doctrine.
The good part of communist is that no one is allowed to hoarde but to share what they get. Meaning if there are those lazy farts, they will get their fair share equally.
If you earn 50,000 dollars and I earn 500 a month, will you share that with me? A Big No, and in commone sense you won’t but in communist if you do not then you will be persecuted for being selfish and agsint the party’s principle which communist itself is selfish. It promotes a one person’s personal opinion into public use.Sukarno wants to adopt by seeing Red because there are things to be shared, you know what I mean. Soeharto with the US behind his back wants to overthrow Soekarno
because of power.WITH THIS, I MEAN SOMEONE DOES NOT MIND AND THE OTHERS CONDONE IN WIPING OUT THE PKI. (I know it is a legally registered party! It is legal according to Indonesian law) AND THAT IS WHAT US WHO MAY HAVE CONVINCINGLY WANTS SOEHARTO TO OPPOSE THAT WAS FOLLOWED BY THE G 30 S/PKI. So by allowing a party to be legally registered and then to be wipe out in a genocide, how does that sound legal to you. If it is legal then why are they wiped out? There is a lots of buts and ifs no such things as do’s and don’t.
To understand in political term rather than interpreting in, because it is a legally registered party so it is legal. I know those who give birth are usually woman.
By such lenghty historical essay, I think you fail to understand the real meaning of a legal party like Golkar, PKB, PAN get me!
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Purba Negoro says:
There was NO genocide.
It is yet ANOTHER CHINESE LIE.
It had NOTHING TO DO WITH RACE- it was all internal power politics with Cold War powers of China and USA very much involvedIt was very close to all-out civil war:
PKI fought with PNI.
Masyudi and NU fight the PKI and PNI
Dayaks fought the PKI
In 1965 Muhamadiyah declare a Jihad against everyoneSukarno himself stated in 1968, “I doubt even 66,000 killed” (translated from his Memoirs)
Everyone was fighting- Indonesia had gone mad
It was a horrible time- I lived through itIf not for the military- Jakarta would have turned into giant massacre of everyone- Batak, Javanese, Chinese, Muslim, Communist, Socialist everyone.
Sometimes even people killed for jealousy, or business, or over girlfriends.The very worst violence was in CENTRAL JAVA =90%+ Javanese- so it is completely not true ONLY Chinese killed. EVERYONE was in danger
I had distant family members killed because they support Sukarno, my wife’s grandparents jailed for being Sukarnoists- on her side of the family many killed or sent to Boven Digul, Cipininang and elsewhere
Proving 1965-1966 HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH RACE
The killers were Masyumi and Darul Isla’amiyah civilian followers NOT THE STATE- these murders were punished severely for their actions which almost create Civil War.
PKI is still ILLEGAL.
Communism is still ILLEGAL.Communists are all still blacklisted and the ban will never be removed for their treason.
The real problem of Communist start in 1948 after Renville Agreement when NAtionlist soldiers can return home.
While Nationalist soldiers were fighting- the PKI had taken over many faclities.On Sep 18, 1948 at Madiun when the Communist refuse to drop their wepons- Mussoand Amir Sjarifuddin announce a “Soviet Indonesia”
It took 12 days of fighting to crush this treasonous rebellion by famous Division Siliwangi.In 1955- PNI and Masyumi (Madjeslis Suryo Muslimin Indonesia) win 57 seats each, Nadhlatul Ulama 45, PKI 39 seats.
So already a major problem of Islamics winning too many votes.
Then in 1957- USA provoke rebellion in Sumatera- Sukarno implement what the ABRI always wanted for social stability- Martial Law.
Sukarno was NOT a Communist he was a Left Leaning Nationalist attempting to create a leftist armed wing separate to counterbalance the rightist Armed Forces and the Islamics (irreconcilable with PKI).
Sukarno’s grandstanding was the cause of his own demise- life was terrible during Konfrontasi, Boikot etc.
I cannot believe how people remember it with nostalgia- it was an absolutely dreadful time- he had ruined us, we were starving and well-fed Sukarno and too well fed Megawati lived comfortably in the Palace surrounded by Concubines with the audacity to tell us the be patient in his Anni Vivere Pericoloso
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You mean
There was NO genocide.
So how many people got killed then it is considered a genocide, mass murder! Care to translate that from your wikipedia? A mass murder may not consist of killings done towards a certain race but for genocide it is.
It is yet ANOTHER CHINESE LIE.
This is what those that call out wolf.
I
t had NOTHING TO DO WITH RACE
Absolutely it has something to do with race otherwise why the clandestine G 30 S PKI operation? Someone somewhere somehow had managed to work out some political move as an excuse for carrying out such an operation that tantamount to a genocide because a certain race was picked upon. As to some Pribumis themselves were involved was because they were thought to be communist sympathisers.
Everyone was fighting- Indonesia had gone mad
It was a horrible time- I lived through itSo you have live through it!. You must be lucky for being a Pro Soeharto Nationalists who hates the Sukarnos. But I thought you said Soekarno was and Soeharto was not a Nationalist?
If not for the military- Jakarta would have turned into giant massacre
It is because of the military force of Seokarno and Soeharto that led to the genocide and you still do not consider that a massacre giant enough. You might want to expect death by the millions to be giant right!
The very worst violence was in CENTRAL JAVA =90%+ Javanese- so it is completely not true ONLY Chinese killed. EVERYONE was in danger
I am sure you made the head counts? Obviously there were Pribumis being killed but since their target were the PKI and Chinese were in the picking, those that sympathize with the PKI were also targeted to go. But since Chinese was in their picking then by common logics, death toll for the Chinese should far exceed that of the Pribumis. Don’t you have a sense of deduction?
Proving 1965-1966 HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH RACE
NOTHING TO DO WITH RACE? Then why the elimination and prohibition of Chinese writings, books, schools, and signage? Why not they rpohibit and eliminate Dutch?
he had ruined us
AND NOW YOU SAID HE RUIN US???????????? Am I hearing something wrong!
No wonder you called yourself “Fan” “Hua Na”..hmm how befitting..
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Patrick says:
@Ziad – Interesting (yawn) piece of propaganda you wrote about the wonderful virtues of communism. Personally, I served in Germany during the cold war and patrolled on the border of East Germany. Today, I live in South Florida. The one thing that I have noticed over the years is that no-one in their right mind attempts to risk their life to flee capitalism and quite frankly for the most part the capitalist governments could care less to stop such a person. To flee East Germany for example a person took considerable risks that often ended in death. I witnessed from the Western German side the constantina wire, fences, wolf sized dogs fed every 3rd day, the machine gun nests spread in close proximity all along the border and the various check points. It was quite a maze of obstacles and yet hundreds if not thousands of East Germans braved them for that one chance of freedom by escaping to the West.
In Florida, till this very day, Cubans keep coming here by bravely escaping the Castro communist workers paradise he created. They do so by traveling in in anything they can manage to float and in dangerous waters. Many never make it as they are either captured or killed by the Cuban patrols whose mission is to prevent their escape. Others die because their crafts fall apart during the journey and they either drown or become shark bait.
My question to you if communism is so great than why do so many people forced to live under it prefer to leave even at the risk of their lives?
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Fenristheman says:
There is no single version of communism, and in fact the so-called “communist” nations are just as nationalist and authoritarian as US-backed dictatorships, and most of them have their own views on communism. Nations such as Yugoslavia and Albania were far more open with the West and free than Soviet puppets, while China came to open clashes with Russia and Vietnam, and eventually free market reforms, and North Korea continued to embrace totalitarianism. There are other communists in Western democracies that embraced social reform and liberalism. To argue that, because of the crimes of communist states, the massacres of communists and alleged communists are justified, is a logical fallacy. Adolf Hitler and his Axis allies killed the most communists in history, does that completely justify their existance?
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Mike Mallen says:
Dr. Robert Lemelson (Anthropology and Social Psychology) made a documentary about the genocide in 1965 called 40 Years Of Silence. It has some great testimonials of people who experienced this terrible event and still struggle with the aftermath. Here’s the trailer…
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would love to see this movie…
Comment on “Genocide”.
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Ahmad,
I’ve put a link that Adrian has mentioned. It is the excavation of mass grave.